The Children's Research Center (CCRC) consists of five inpatient beds, outpatient facilities of two treatment rooms, a consultation room and reception area, office space, skilled research nurses and other personnel to support these resources. The Children's Clinical Research Center, which has been operating since 1964, permits the faculty of the Departments of Pediatrics, Child Study Center, Psychiatry, Surgery, Genetics and Internal Medicine, their postdoctoral fellows and medical students, to conduct clinical investigation in children. The Center provides the environment for studies of normal and abnormal psychosocial implications of organic disease in this age group. Major issues of investigation include innovative approaches in achieving and maintaining optimal control of diabetes in children and adolescents; effects of obesity, normal puberty and diabetes on insulin action and secretion; factors that influence language development and cognitive function in healthy children and children with dyslexia and attention deficit disorder, evaluation of applicability, efficiency and long-term outcome of surgical treatment of childhood epilepsy; the phenomenology and neurobiology of Tourette's syndrome, childhood autism and other neuropsychiatric disorders; the effects of in utero cocaine and other drug exposure on neurobehavioral development of infants and children; investigations into the immunopathogenesis of insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus; and state-of-the-art advances in the treatment of the critically ill neonate. New initiatives in this proposal include increased research nursing support for child psychiatry-related investigations and the establishment of a direct link with the Hill Health Center, the main community health clinic in New Haven, to enhance minority participation in clinical research.